Diary of a Disease
by missineichen
Summary: Track the evolution of the Clicker virus through the eyes of the monster itself.
1. Evolution 1

How did we come to rule the world, you ask. How did we render the human race our slaves? It's a long story, an evolutionary journey of trial and error, stretching back some 200 million years ago. So what of the heroine among mankind? The girl they call Ellie? Well, the battle continues on that front. And if you care to know more, please drop a line, Fanficverse.

**Evolution**** 1**

Here I am, all but a wee fungus. A silly unassuming little mushroom, four millimeters in height, with skin the colour of earth and freckles the colour of mildew. I'm nothing more than a tiny flake of life in the wider universe. I'm doing okay, although I know that all around me, there are infinitely more impressive flora and fauna rising and falling.

The trees are such imposingly majestic creatures. Reaching out towards the heavens, stretching those long branches of theirs, growing taller and taller, as they fight each other for sunlight. As for me? I'm a more humble sort of creature. I prefer the ground below. The soft supple earth, so rich in nutrients, is all I need to thrive.

Under the shade of my taller brethren, I enjoy the cool damp weather. The condensation collects at ground level, watering the black cushy soil beneath my roots. I simply adore my neighbors. From the flowers, trees and bushes, to the woodland creatures whose pitter pattering feet scatter across the forest floor.

For when the trees shed their leaves, and the lizards breathe their last breath, their organic goodness melds into the earth. And I, greedy little opportunist that I am, lap it up with every pore of my roots. Death is Life, in the mind of a Fungi. It is the pungency of rot that helps me grow.

Tomorrow I spread my spores. After all, the temperature is right, and I am of age now. I will spread my babies far and wide, as I've not done my duty to my species till I've propagated. My children shall germinate. They will burst through the soil, and they will grow.

Infinitely taller and stronger and smarter than I am. For when my babies sprout, oh they will know so much more than I ever did about how to rise and prosper in this fine place called Earth. And there will come a day, make no mistake, that all life bows down to us. As you'll come to see in the long years ahead, it'll not always be the dinosaurs who rule the Earth.


	2. Evolution 2

**Evolution 2**

It is beyond freezing. The winds are unforgiving, the air dry as winter's bone. The moment my roots take in the icy water, it evaporates of my face, and I am left dehydrated and malnourished once more. No matter how deeply I dig, there is no nutrition to be found in this arid wasteland.

There has never been a right time for my kind to sprout since the Ice Age came. But as always, we keep on sprouting anyway. Trucking along, as one of God's many creatures can only do. Basic 101 of survival my species, I must try or die trying.

I've had to push myself through cripplingly solid earth, shards of ice and suffocating layers of snow. I pine for the days of old, when our kind rose upon plush organic earth. These days, there's nothing to eat. I'm at a loss as to how to grow. All around me, my siblings wither and die.

They either remain in the confinements of their spores, waiting for spring to come, till their seeds freeze over like Gargoyles to stone. Or they spout (as I've done), and wait for certain death. I know death is imminent. I'm losing strength, moisture, height. I'm cowering towards the earth from whence I came.

Even the Top of the Kingdom of life is cowing down to this never-ending winter. Yes, the dinosaurs are dropping one by one, like flies. And they are being quickly replaced with hot-blooded beasts, like mammoths and saber-tooth tigers.

These critters, they're like magic. Warming their own blood, regulating their own internal temperature! What a feat of evolution, to discard for the need for warm weather. It certainly removes a problem generations of my kind have suffered without solution. Mammals, they make the previously brilliant dinosaurs seem like nothing more than oversized cumbersome lizards.

If I must die, I'll ensure my offspring do not. My mother was a fool to spread my siblings and I across cold sleets of ice. No, I'll not repeat that mistake with my children. I'll spread them upon the only source of nutrition available in this Age of Ice. Upon the corpses of dead animals.

And from the rotting flesh of these deceased beings, my offspring shall derive their nutrition, and they will sprout and multiply. My children will survive and prosper in this wintry wasteland, even if I do not. They will ride upon the coattails of the dead. We'll not need soil any longer, as there really isn't any anymore. Carcass shall be our new home.


End file.
